Articles

In the new year, SVG quickly needs Green shoots of recovery if we are to see a reduction in the poverty and squalor created under the gross mismanagement of Gonsalves. But what chance is there of recovery with a government that is economically incompetent and exhibits little financial intelligence?

Christmas should be a time of joy and the start of the new year a time of hope for a better and more prosperous future. However, this year the festive season has been tough to the extent that there were no Christmas lights in the home of most Vincentians. There is little hope of Green shoots of recovery for the thousands of poor families in SVG.

The economic situation in SVG is so bad that remittances and high taxes have become the staple diet of the economy. During his 11 years, Gonsalves has failed to create any revenue streams to bring income to the SVG Treasury. Sadly, all he has done is build a dependency culture for Vincentians. Gonsalves' government continually begs for hand outs and lives off the sweat of other nations. That is the mentality of weak leaders of the 1950s.

Any farmer knows that for Green shoots to appear, you need to sow seeds in fertile ground. Gonsalves has not sown any seeds to bring about shoots of recovery for the SVG economy and in the new year we can only expect a failed crop with respect to jobs and prosperity for Vincentians.

Economically, SVG has become barren ground under Gonsalves. Builders' merchants with over 40 years in business say that 2011 has been very bad for sales. Statistics on SVG's trade show that exports and imports have fallen quite seriously in 2011. Unemployment and crime rates have been high in 2011. The Common Entrance Exam results were the worst in history for 2011.

What chance of Green shoots of recovery in 2012 when Gonsalves' policies propagate these destructive seeds in the barren ground that is our weak economy?

SVG needs a Green economy. We need our own science university, new agro-processing factories, a fish processing and canning industry, to export fresh water in tanker loads, to abolish VAT, free education from pre-school to university, to grow more of our own food and import less, to empower and educate the people, an end to tax exemptions in Mustique, to wave goodbye to Taiwan and a multi-variable economy driven by indigenous productive sectors. These are the seeds of change that would initiate Green shoots of recovery in 2012 and bring the thousands of jobs that are desperately needed.

These are the seeds of change that are capable of growing and developing our economy to enable it to mature and sustain itself and a prosperous life for Vincentians. These are the seeds of change that would produce a fertile economy in which businesses would flourish.

The year 2012 can bear shoots of recovery, but SVG will need to be Green for it to be so.